Thursday, September 25, 2008

and the waves keep on coming...

when i was a kid, my dad taught me how to swim in the ocean. how to dive under the waves as they are cresting so that i wouldn't get crushed or knocked around by their enormous power.

you have to respect the sea, for she is a cruel mistress.

i love love love swimming in the ocean. there is something so peaceful and freeing about it.

sometimes i even let myself dive under the waves a fraction of a second too late, and i get tossed around like lettuce in a salad spinner back towards the beach. to give up any semblance of control to a power that laughs at our tiny human attempts to put each and every part of our lives in compartments and analyze every human emotion and thought until there is nothing left of it. there is something enormously humbling and beautiful in getting tossed around by the ocean.

right now, the ocean is my life. i dived under the wave a hair too late, and it is tumbling, tumbling, tumbling me backwards. and sideways. and upside down. parts of myself that were long forgotten or perceived to be overcome are surfacing.

and, just like when i let the ocean toss me, the second i am able to reach the break of the surface, gasp for a breath, and check to make sure my swim suit top hasn't fallen off, another wave is right behind me, and i am under yet again.

i think i'm fine, and then...whoosh. another reminder. another calendar entry that i forgot to erase when it happened, marking a social event we had planned, another note, another picture, a toothbrush, or piece of him that i forgot to shove into the shopping bags - compartmentalizing him into nothing - crashes down on my head, and i can't breathe.

this morning, it was a sticker. a sizing sticker from a pair of jeans he bought the other week, that had somehow gotten stuck to the hem of one of my dresses. i put the dress on, saw it, and ended up in the fetal position on the floor. the other day, it was the laundry. the last load of laundry i will ever do that has his clothes in it. his t-shirts made me weep until i was shaking.

it all seems so pathetic. it all seems so melodramatic. but what you have to understand is that my entire future, all of the dreams, all of the plans, everything i had come to believe was indestructable has been demolished. those were dreams i never thought i would have. plans i never believed i would count on. trust. gone.

and now...now what?

you have to respect the sea.

right now, i guess i just doggy paddle until the next wave comes. then, maybe i can find my way back towards the beach. and someday, i'll be able to swim in the ocean again.